Via the CNN article:
"We kind of have an informal betting pool going around in our center and that betting pool is 'does the North Pole melt out this summer?' and it may well," said the center's senior research scientist Mark Serreze.I find that part in bold to be quite an odd claim. Explorers had been searching for a Northwest Passage through the Arctic for years in the late 1800s. Clearly they were going because someone told them that it was possible at some point in earlier history. Indeed, Roald Amundsen navigated the Northwest Passage between 1903 and 1906 in the Gjoa. Several ships have made the passage since.
It's a 50-50 bet that the thin Arctic sea ice, which was frozen last autumn, will completely melt away at the geographic North Pole, Serreze said.
The ice retreated to a record level in September when the Northwest Passage -- the sea route through the Arctic Ocean -- opened up briefly for the first time in recorded history.
"What we've seen through the past few decades is the Arctic sea ice cover is becoming thinner and thinner as the system warms up," Serreze said.
Indeed, Greenland got its name not because it was iced over, but because at one point in recent history it was a verdant landscape that was quite hospitable to the Vikings who discovered it.
The scientists aren't exactly acting like scientists here, but rather hoping that their preconceived notion of global warming comes true. They're hoping that the polar ice cap melts so that they can "prove" that global warming exists, even though the link between the two is anything but proven.
UPDATE:
AJ Strata throws some hot magma on the situation - that recently discovered volcanic activity may be responsible for the changes seen in the Arctic ice cap (HT: HelloDare at LGF).
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